This may look strange to those who haven’t been following the blog long (and I’ve been gone awhile), but what it represents is a challenge that was made on a pastel forum on Wet Canvas (so long ago, I’m embarrassed to say). The idea was to loosen up by doing small pastels very quickly and purposely choosing colors that you wouldn’t actually use if you were going for the best. We set our own perimeters and mine were 5 X 7, done in 30 minutes or less. I have to say it is fun to pick out a color that makes you groan and then use it.

If you scroll down through the blog, you’ll see what I mean. Now, since I’ve taken so long to do this (I’ll usually do 3 or 4 and then go back to normal painting, I think I may have miss counted. I have all of these 5 X 7s taped onto large cardboard sheets and out of the way of little dogs, etc. But, I’ll check them all before I raise the flag!!